Electric conversion prices coming down?

[Bowie69]

1 minute ago, geoffbeaumont said:

Ah, but the V8 owners obsess over every last mpg instead...

Not sure I fall into that category tbh  

[Gazzar]

So much power and mpg compared to a 2286 petrol with worn bores and a knackered zenith.

[FridgeFreezer]

4 hours ago, geoffbeaumont said:

Ah, but the V8 owners obsess over every last mpg instead...

I assure you no-one running a V8 can be seriously worried about fuel costs

Back on-topic I was surprised that my mate with an EV said charging is actually quite expensive, especially fast charging at service stations - as in, it's nearly as expensive as putting fuel in a regular car I'd always thought it was way cheaper than petrol or diesel but aparrently not. Obviously it's a bit cheaper, and much better for the planet.

[Bowie69]

Agreed, where we pay 30p per unit even at today's inflated prices, the fast chargers can be 70p or more....

Time is money and all that, but even in a good EV 4 miles per KWh makes it rather close to 30mpg on petrol. Factor in vehicle purchase cost and... well have you saved anything?

[David Sparkes]

1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

'... Back on-topic I was surprised that my mate with an EV said charging is actually quite expensive, especially fast charging at service stations - as in, it's nearly as expensive as putting fuel in a regular car . I'd always thought it was way cheaper than petrol or diesel but apparently not. Obviously it's a bit cheaper, and much better for the planet.

When I wanted to buy an EV, (2017) one of my selection criteria was 'would it do my longest monthly run, as a round trip, without using more than 75% of a full charge?'. If the vehicle couldn't manage that then it wasn't fit for my purposes.
Two additional relevant points;
I'm retired, so Social, Domestic, and Pleasure trips.

I bought a home charge point, so that even if I ran the vehicle so hard it only had 9 miles range left when I returned home at night, by the time I'd had breakfast the vehicle would be fully charged and ready to go again.
This has worked in practise.
Obviously I paid close attention to to the domestic home tariff.

What this has meant is that I have little experience of 'service station' charging.
I do make longer trips, generally planning around a charging network I've learnt to rely on, and that uses a standard Debit card. I have noticed prices have increased, but they are so few and far between that the purpose of the SDP trip far outweighs the slight additional cost of not being able to charge at home.

Regards.

[geoffbeaumont]

2 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I assure you no-one running a V8 can be seriously worried about fuel costs

When I had a V8 it was more about range - then again, I had an LPG conversion with only 70l of tanks. I guess it was good practice for running an electric car... 😕

Price per mile it actually worked out cheaper than running a petrol escort.

[Snagger]

7 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I assure you no-one running a V8 can be seriously worried about fuel costs

Back on-topic I was surprised that my mate with an EV said charging is actually quite expensive, especially fast charging at service stations - as in, it's nearly as expensive as putting fuel in a regular car I'd always thought it was way cheaper than petrol or diesel but aparrently not. Obviously it's a bit cheaper, and much better for the planet.

Economically, a conversion doesn’t come near to running the existing ICE yet, and won’t for some time yet even with current fuel prices unless you have the vehicle for decades or charge it from your own solar array.

[deep]

8 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I assure you no-one running a V8 can be seriously worried about fuel costs

Back on-topic I was surprised that my mate with an EV said charging is actually quite expensive, especially fast charging at service stations - as in, it's nearly as expensive as putting fuel in a regular car I'd always thought it was way cheaper than petrol or diesel but aparrently not. Obviously it's a bit cheaper, and much better for the planet.

Not anywhere near as much better for the planet as people think!  Every kind of electricity generation has associated environmental costs and some are really bad.  But, sure, if you live in a city and the air outside is clean, you will think you're doing a good job.

When I ran V8s (two early Range Rovers and a Stage One), I took fuel economy seriously and did what I could to hit that magic 20 m.p.g. mark.  It all seemed quite reasonable.  Now I run a vastly more economical Freelander2 six and every trip makes me sweat with fear about how much it's going to cost!  I've looked at the running costs of electric vehicles and the weekly savings would be very significant, as things stand, but not significant enough to cover a loan of that magnitude (though I see you can now get an electric motorcycle for a modest outlay, that's a whole other kind of cost/benefit analysis!).

[FridgeFreezer]

15 hours ago, deep said:

Not anywhere near as much better for the planet as people think!  Every kind of electricity generation has associated environmental costs and some are really bad

This gets claimed a lot but there's been more recent studies that show EV's are better even running on dirty electricity, because they use energy way more efficiently and the power station converts fossil fuels to electricity very efficiently compared to a car engine. Plus, that dirty power station is very likely going to be phased out or retro-fitted to something cleaner, making your EV magically even cleaner overnight.

[Nonimouse]

20 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

This gets claimed a lot but there's been more recent studies that show EV's are better even running on dirty electricity, because they use energy way more efficiently and the power station converts fossil fuels to electricity very efficiently compared to a car engine. Plus, that dirty power station is very likely going to be phased out or retro-fitted to something cleaner, making your EV magically even cleaner overnight.

But that new power station will have to be built. The EV will have to be built - so many enormous carbon holes, again and again. Day to day running is nothing compared to the environmental cost of the build.

[FridgeFreezer]

2 hours ago, Nonimouse said:

But that new power station will have to be built. The EV will have to be built - so many enormous carbon holes, again and again. Day to day running is nothing compared to the environmental cost of the build.

I'm sure the IPCC investigation & scientific report didn't think of that

[Nonimouse]

7 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

I'm sure the IPCC investigation & scientific report didn't think of that

As it's a large part of my job, Environment is quite important to me. I've actually read it - well. the Summary and Technical summary. There are holes large enough to steer the Queen Mary through, but like any technical report, those holes are only noticeable if you know and understand how the environment works.  Carbon calculation is very much a random number generator; and Carbon pollution is a very misunderstood science, beloved of politicians and trouble makers the world over.

[jeremy996]

ICE cars are quite straightforward for carbon and energy consumption as we have 100+ years of experience. As a very rough approximation, a third of all the energy for an ICE car is used up to make it and the remaining two-thirds are the running energy consumption and the consequences of scrapping/recycling. Consequently, using old cars for longer makes a big difference to the level of energy used/carbon emitted. 

We don't have the equivalent for BEVs; the old assumptions for battery life are proving to be too pessimistic and the values for depleted batteries are proving to be higher than expected. Careful thermal management has made a massive difference to battery life, so the early cars with only air cooling are becoming obsolete much faster than ones with liquid cooling and more sophisticated charge management systems.

It is likely that most Teslas will be scrapped as parts become unavailable than through the demise of the powertrain or battery array. The big pinch points for early Tesla S cars are the screen, (if it dies, you cannot drive the car) and some memory chips in embedded systems, (as they are not compatible with more modern ones). Tesla's rather twisted relationship with hobbyist/non-franchised repairers does not help.  Some bits of the early Tesla Roadsters are crazily expensive, so most have become museum exhibits rather than viable transport.

[deep]

8 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

This gets claimed a lot but there's been more recent studies that show EV's are better even running on dirty electricity, because they use energy way more efficiently and the power station converts fossil fuels to electricity very efficiently compared to a car engine. Plus, that dirty power station is very likely going to be phased out or retro-fitted to something cleaner, making your EV magically even cleaner overnight.

New Zealand's biggest windfarm, advertised as giving copious amounts of "clean, green, energy", was built in a reserve and construction involved cutting down hundreds of thousands of carbon-fixing trees.  It will never be carbon-neutral, let alone beneficial.  Maybe not all construction is as hypocritical but it all has a cost.  I learned recently (but have yet to verify it) that we are importing record amounts of coal, shipping it from Indonesia and then trucking it to the power stations to run electric cars.  Whether that is "better" than running carbon burners directly is really irrelevant.  We are not "saving the planet" by building millions of electric cars and associated infrastructure and we are not making anything better while we continue to claim the right to travel vast distances at high speed without question.

In fact, electric cars are going the same way that petrol/diesel ones did.  For decades, we could have done most of our driving around in small cars that got 60 miles on a gallon of petrol or better.  When needed, we could have carried bigger loads in cars that still bettered 40 m.p.g..  Yet we didn't.  We mostly bought more powerful cars that could seat at least five people and do more than a hundred miles an hour.  Or our slower, dirty old Land Rovers (which most of us didn't buy as long-range commuters, I hope!).  Now we have big, fast, electric cars that mostly aren't designed for maximum efficiency, so we still consume more resources than we need, in the interests of indulgence.  To go further, we could have laid out the places we lived so we only travelled a fraction of the distances that we do and imported far less stuff from overseas and so on and on and on and on - but society as a whole doesn't care and mostly only wants electric cars for the same reason it bought lots of ghastly Toyota Prisuses, which is to display a badge that says you care (even though you don't).

For sure, things CAN be better with electric vehicles and probably will be eventually but, right now, it's more hype, image and hysteria than substance.

[miketomcat]

The irony in all of this I used to work in a boat yard called bucklers hard, there has been a boat builders there for several hundred years. The main part of the site is a museum showing how the ships were build on the river and everyone needed lived in the village including farmers to feed workers. The timber way grown locally and replaced as used. You didn't need to go anywhere else, you could walk to everything you needed. By the time I worked there the ship yard was long since gone the village became a museum. I couldn't afford to live anywhere near the newer boat yard (slightly further up river) so had to commute from 7miles away.

Apparently this is progress......

Mike

[deep]

I briefly lived in England, near the South Downs.  It was a point of major dissatisfaction that many of the farm cottages were becoming second or third homes for city workers, while farm workers had to live miles away as a consequence - with both groups commuting in opposite directions!  I think it's called free will or something, except nothing is free and only the wealthier folk get to exercise it.

[landroversforever]

On 6/29/2022 at 2:13 PM, Nonimouse said:

But that new power station will have to be built. The EV will have to be built - so many enormous carbon holes, again and again. Day to day running is nothing compared to the environmental cost of the build.

Can't remember if I've posted it in this thread or not but I read an article recently from volvo showing that the EV version of the XC40 takes 140K kilometers to emit less co2 per mile... add to that the average UK driver keeps a car for about 2 years.... 

[jeremy996]

40 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

Can't remember if I've posted it in this thread or not but I read an article recently from volvo showing that the EV version of the XC40 takes 140K kilometers to emit less co2 per mile... add to that the average UK driver keeps a car for about 2 years.... 

But most cars don't die at 2 years old and enter the used market, where eventually they'll do 100k miles+ and last to about 13.5 years before being scrapped, (US 12 years and 200k miles). 

The influx of new-used electric cars will reduce the average energy usage in the pool as a whole, eventually.

The new car buyer makes a big contribution to the subsequent owners by absorbing all of the initial depreciation!

[smallfry]

On 6/29/2022 at 5:07 PM, Nonimouse said:

As it's a large part of my job, Environment is quite important to me. I've actually read it - well. the Summary and Technical summary. There are holes large enough to steer the Queen Mary through, but like any technical report, those holes are only noticeable if you know and understand how the environment works.  Carbon calculation is very much a random number generator; and Carbon pollution is a very misunderstood science, beloved of politicians and trouble makers the world over.

Of far more concern to me, and should be to others, is the ACTUAL holes in the ground, generally in third world countries, and all the, environmental damage, pollution and water consumption involved in obtaining raw materials, processing, refining, shipping, manufacturing, and recycling of batteries. If you do some reading, its really bad.  Much more so that worry about "breaking even" in carbon neutrality, or the inconvenience of limited range et al.

All thats really going on, is swapping one sort of environmental damage for another, once again at the expense of less developed countries 

[Nonimouse]

9 hours ago, smallfry said:

Of far more concern to me, and should be to others, is the ACTUAL holes in the ground, generally in third world countries, and all the, environmental damage, pollution and water consumption involved in obtaining raw materials, processing, refining, shipping, manufacturing, and recycling of batteries. If you do some reading, its really bad.  Much more so that worry about "breaking even" in carbon neutrality, or the inconvenience of limited range et al.

All thats really going on, is swapping one sort of environmental damage for another, once again at the expense of less developed countries 

My biggest concern is the total lack of sustainability in our lifestyles - this utter contempt at living in harmony with our planet. Global warming is here. It's done.  We need to learn to live with it, try to slow down our self destruction. But we are too selfish to do that

[elbekko]

Can we please not have the same "discussion" for the umpteenth time in every EV thread?

[smallfry]

Its all very relevant, and what people feel, but in that case, as Land Rover do not produce an EV (yet) perhaps EVs should not be discussed at all, on this forum ?

[FridgeFreezer]

12 hours ago, landroversforever said:

add to that the average UK driver keeps a car for about 2 years.... 

But the average *age* of a car on the roads is something like 10 years isn't it? No-one's scrapping 2-year-old cars.

[elbekko]

49 minutes ago, smallfry said:

Its all very relevant, and what people feel, but in that case, as Land Rover do not produce an EV (yet) perhaps EVs should not be discussed at all, on this forum ?

I have no problems with EV discussion. I have no problem with the discussion about the source of EV pollution and all that jazz. What I do have a problem with is that it gets repeated every other week. Keep it in one thread.

This one was about the price of the conversion. Or do we need to start discussion fossil fuel sources in every thread about a V8 swap?

[deep]

Well, environmental concerns and political smoke and mirrors might well not seem relevant to a discussion on the price of converting a vehicle to electric power.  However, they are part of the real cost involved, are of vital importance and inevitably will become part of any such discussion because of that.  Pounds and dollars are really the secondary cost, in the long term!  

Ironically, though, the environmental cost of converting our existing Land Rovers must be much lower than creating an entirely new vehicle and scrapping the old one.  The conversion might attain that goal of lower long-term carbon dioxide production somewhere around the same time as it starts to pay for itself financially?  Just a thought.

I watched a telly programme yesterday, in which they converted a humble Fiat Bambina to electric (a real shame, given how thrifty a petrol Bambina is!).  The conversion was ￡15,000 and will probably never pay for itself either way.  It makes me think that the real advantages to conversions are with larger, less fuel efficient vehicles like ours.